Friday, December 2, 2011

Lies, Tell Us Lies, Tell Us Sweet Little Lies...

Does anyone else remember when we talked about the issue of Challenger jet flights?

Good, that will bring us all up to speed then. After Canada's Top General got caught using a challenger jet to fly down to the Caribbean for a vacation. Then days later word came out that Defence Minister Peter MacKay had used both a Newfoundland Search-and-Rescue chopper to leave a vacation at a fishing lodge; as well as using a challenger to fly to a lobster festival days later.

MacKay defended the use of the chopper by saying that he was taking part in a search-and-rescue training exercise that was in the area.

And now, e-mails obtained by access to information requests directly contradict the answer that MacKay provided in the House of Commons.

In fact, the e-mails suggest that the military was more or less pushed into picking MacKay up from his fishing trip. On top of this, there appears that a SAR helicopter was not MacKay's only option for leaving his fishing trip a day early. In fact, MacKay was only a 90 minute boat ride and then a 30 minute drive from the nearest airport. 120 minutes, altogether. Furthermore, MacKay or his staff have yet to provide a reason as to why this alternative was unacceptable.

So, what's the real issue here?

Well, we've got MacKay lying to Parliament, for one. Then there's misappropriation of military aircraft/resources...

The lying to Parliament thing is probably the biggie though, given that this government is quickly establishing a sterling record for saying one thing while doing another. After all, we've got Tony Clement saying that he wasn't involved in deciding what projects in his riding would receive funding from the G-8 Heritage Fund (though information that has been released directly contradicts his statement)...Then there's the entire Harper Government team saying that the PMO/PCO did not issue orders to refer to the Government of Canada in news releases as the Harper Government...(Even Harper's former press secretary denied this claim, though memos have now come out showing that the order did indeed come down the bureaucratic chain.)

If anything, this is just a further list on the things this government has done that shows they have zero credibility or reliability to tell the truth. This is like the kid who gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar, then has the gaul to suggest that it's actually their older brother taking all the cookies.

Now, I sourced this yesterday, so I didn't re-source it today.

In response to SaskTel's cellular problems, the Wall Government as dismissed ten managers from the Crown Corporation. In Wall's style (which we saw when they first came to power and cleaned out the civil service) cause for the terminations were not provided to the employees and they will instead be paid out full severance packages and other benefits.

Which brings us to Wall's talking point for SaskTel. Wall has, for the second time, suggested that SaskTel does not have the capacity to meet service expectations. This is conservative speak for a private company would not have these problems.

Now, it is indeed possible that this is the first opening salvo from the Wall Government with regards to destroying SaskTel. After all, the government as already robbed them of their profits from the past few years and increased the Crown's debt level due to the need for private loans.

We'll see when the government and the crown rehire the positions that have just been opened. If the government is overhanded in selecting people for those positions, it's a bad sign. If any of the positions are 'consolidated' to save money, it's a bad sign. If any of them are left vacant, it's a bad sign.

SaskTel is being put into a precarious position by this government, and if the government continues to raid SaskTel's profits, then we could very well see this crown corporation fall apart in the years ahead.